parenting out loud

i just sat through a soccer game during which, for one hour straight, a mother of one of the opposing players sang out a running stream of instructions, corrections, cheers, criticisms, and self-help slogans from the sidelines. she had a voice like a hydraulic brake, one of those sounds it is impossible not to listen to. steve and i call that kind of behavior “parenting out loud.” you hear it a lot on playgrounds, the kind of self-consciously correct parenting that is quite obviously about displaying someone’s deeply perfect parental love and empathy for a captive audience of onlookers than it is about effectively raising a child. what does that have to do with maple leaves, you might well ask at this point. well, i don’t really like photographing fall color for still blog. it’s too obvious a solution. it’s done too much. it’s pretty without always being interesting. but these leaves just kept haranguing me from the sidelines. they were shouting. i couldn’t tune them out. and eventually, i gave up and took their photo, just to shut them up.

red maple leaves in early october

arden hills, saint paul, minnesota

  • margie says:

    i love when the trees are on fire like this and always take a few photographs before the still ness of winter

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  • Kathleen says:

    I always feel sorry for the kids of those parents. So much stress. I’m sure it affects their concentration on the field. I’ll take a mountainous pile of colourful leaves over a mouthy parent any day!

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